Anodyne
Friday, August 24, 2018
 

-Do you realize that the monetary value of this promotion and the prize is potentially worth more than the purchases?
 
"Once a long time ago between sets at the Half Note, I told the jazz cornet player Ruby Braff I thought he was great. He said,'Why should I care what you think?' A good lesson." (Peter Straub)
Wednesday, August 22, 2018
 
"Orwell was one of a significant number of men who, deprived of a settled way of living, or of a faith, or having rejected those which were inherited, find virtue in a kind of improvised living, and in an assertion of independence. The tradition, in England, is distinguished. It attracts to itself many of the liberal virtues: empiricism, a certain integrity, frankness. It has also, as the normally contingent virtue of exile, certain qualities of perception: in particular, the ability to distinguish inadequacies in the groups which have been rejected. It gives, also, an appearance of strength, although this is largely illusory. The qualities, though salutary, are largely negative; there is an appearance of hardness (the austere criticism of hypocrisy, complacency, self-deceit), but this is usually brittle, and at times hysterical: the substance of community is lacking, and the tension, in men of high quality, is very great."  (Raymond Williams)
 

"There are different versions of the Paro, and the clinical one for hospitals is sturdier and doesn’t react to negativity as highly (for example, patients poking its eyes)."
 

"[C]onsider PARO – a robot designed in Japan by Takanori Shibata and introduced into care homes and hospitals worldwide following its launch in 1998. PARO looks like a baby harp seal, with silky fur, limpid black eyes and luxuriant eyelashes. It can move its head, eyelids, neck, flippers and tail. It has sensors for light, touch, sound, temperature and posture, which enable it to make eye contact when you speak to it, and to respond and/or learn if you stroke it or hit it. It responds to a few simple words and phrases, including its own name. When it vocalises, its squeaks are constructed from snippets of digitally recorded baby-seal cries, and seem to have some (limited) emotional range."
Monday, August 20, 2018
 

Three things that have recently contributed to Anodyne Inc.'s success:

1. Horizon Kinetics quarterly commentaries but not their analysis of cryptocurrency; I regard crypto as the ponzi to end all ponzis ("Imagine if keeping your car idling 24/7 produced solved Sudokus you could trade for heroin") & maintain a 0% weighting in the portfolio.

2. Greenblatt's funny, lucid You Can Be a Stock Market Genius.

3.  An old, old, old friend's past & present East Coast postal code, & the best high-calorie dinner(s) between Charleston & the Dry Tortugas.
 

Anodyne Inc.

Actual returns through 12/31/2017

5 yrs 12.0% (TSE 8.7%)
3 yrs 14.8% (TSE unavailable)
1 yr 18.00% (TSE 9.1%)

I have pretty much quit writing up case studies here -- hardly anyone read them, and one or two of you basically accused me of making everything up.  But the truth is otherwise.

Buffett: "[Munger], as a very young lawyer, was probably getting $20 an hour. He thought to himself, 'Who's my most valuable client?' And he decided it was himself. So he decided to sell himself an hour each day. He did it early in the morning, working on these construction projects and real estate deals. Everybody should do this, be the client, and then work for other people, too, and sell yourself an hour a day."
Monday, August 13, 2018
 

Sunday, August 12, 2018
 
Deep Throat v. Alibaba

"If, by some strange, impossible happenstance, I'm completely, totally wrong.... and Alibaba isn't actually the tip of the spear for the CCP's full frontal assault on the Western Financial System, the only other conclusion I can possibly come to is that Alibaba [is] the goofiest, most convoluted, opaque, mis-managed accounting mess and business structure in history."
Saturday, August 11, 2018
 

Q400: Man, have you been to the Olympics [referring to the mountains], these guys are gorgeous. Holy smokes.

ATC: Yeah, I have been out there. It’s…it’s always a nice drive.

[…]

Q400: [beginning clipped, unintelligible]

ATC: Yeah, I bet you do.

[...]

Q400: Um…I’m just kinda light headed, dizzy. Um…man, and, you know, the sights went by so fast, too. I was thinking, like, I’m gonna have this moment of serenity, you know…be able to take all…take in all the sights…Uh…there’s a lot of pretty stuff…but, uh…I think they’re prettier in a different context.

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